Recording to tape

[wookiee]

Hey, I wanted to talk about and share newer albums being recorded to tape. Most groups these days are using ProTools, Cubase... Some computer software to record their albums. While I have no issue with recording this way, I find it really fascinating when groups record their albums using older more traditional methods.

When I sat down to think about the sound I wanted on my latest release, the thing that kept popping into my head was how the older albums had such a great "live" feel to them. While a lot of the newer albums sounds really polished and clean, but lack that certain "live" feel. I wanted that live sound. So, we recorded to 2" tape, mixed down into a Radar machine, then mastered the record. We did three takes per song and picked the best take. The mixing was super quick, since we were only using 8 tracks. We did no editing and no overdubs.

Here's a link to my album to get things kicked off: Park St. Trio

Let's compare this one, done in 2011, to the old Miles Davis, John Coltrane... albums, also recorded to tape. Does anyone know any other groups that have recorded to tape in the modern age of recording?

Here's another super cool example, one which I have nothing to do with: Cylinder Recording

[Teasing the Korean]

Sounds nice! Musically and sonically!

Not to shoot a hole in your theory, but I have recorded my combo in a similar setting except to digital, but still using top drawer mics, a natural room sound, no electronics, no overdubs, etc. The results are also very good. But yeah, analog is another link in the chain that adds to the sound.

[.:.impossible]

Spacebomb Records is recording everything to tape. Vocals, rhythm tracks, horn sections, strings, chorus. Great label based around a versatile house band. All releases on vinyl only plus dub mixes available to limited download.

http://spacebombrecords.com/

[AllenLowe]

would love to use tape, but only if

1) it was without noise reduction, which defeats the purpose - so it would require 1 inch tape at 15ips to be quiet enough

2) I could be sure the supply of good recording tape would last

3) I had a good repair person nearbye for any issues, including biasing, etc.

[wookiee]

Sounds nice! Musically and sonically!

Not to shoot a hole in your theory, but I have recorded my combo in a similar setting except to digital, but still using top drawer mics, a natural room sound, no electronics, no overdubs, etc. The results are also very good. But yeah, analog is another link in the chain that adds to the sound.

We actually recorded the tracks simultaneously to tape and Radar. Then played them back A/B style. Doing a blind listening test, everyone in the band thought the tape recording sounded thicker, and more authentic. The recording was done at Little Red Wagon Studio's.

3) I had a good repair person nearbye for any issues, including biasing, etc.

Funny, the machine did break a few times during the session, luckily our engineer knew a lot about them, so he fixed each issue fairly quickly.

[Jim Alfredson]

I had a long reply typed up and lost it. D'oh!

I've recorded to tape but most of my recording is done digitally. The beauty of digital is the expense (it's cheap), convenience, editing capabilities, and the fact that what you put in is what you get out. And lately I find that's the best way of working; get a nice, warm, analog sound up front and then track it digitally. The reason this is best for me right now is due to the enormously high cost of tape coupled with the lack of reliable sources for that tape.

I've also found in my experience that how you capture material matters much more than on what format the material is captured. Mic selection, mic placement, room placement, the sound of the room, the quality of preamps, compressors, and EQs, whether or not the musicians are tracking in the same room together or separated by iso booths, whether their amps and instruments are isolated or not, how much bleed there is between instruments in the mics, etc; all have a dramatic effect on the captured sound. Whether that sound is on tape or not definitely matters but if you have the rest covered in the best way possible for the music at hand, the decision to use tape or digital is one of pure aesthetics and either one is valid.

For example, on organissimo's "Groovadelphia" album, I tracked the trio in the same room with all our instruments and their respective amps in the room, too. Each individual instrument mic had bleed from the other instruments, some more than others. I took a lot of care to place the mics in order to minimize bleed and thus phase incoherence, but there's only so much you can do. We recorded to Cubase through some very nice preamps with lots of big transformers in them, using good mics, and spread out over about 22 tracks. A handful of those tracks were ambient mics to capture the room. I also did a lot of room treatments in my little space to get it sounding as good as I think it can. Even though we recorded digitally, I think there is a vibe to that CD that is directly linked to the recording process itself. The process was to record two to three takes of each tune and pick the best one. Some of the cuts on the CD wound up being composites of two or more takes (literally the first half of the song is take 1 the second is take 2) but most were complete, unedited takes. We did a couple overdubs but those were adding parts rather than fixing mistakes; with the bleed present in the mics there was no way to do overdubs to fix musicianship problems. I really like how that CD turned out. It sounds like an organ trio playing together in a room.

On organissimo's "This Is The Place", we tracked at my friend's professional studio. We did some tests before actual tracking to compare tape vs. ProTools and decided with ProTools. Tape sounded great, but for what we were doing, ProTools was crisper, cleaner, and had better separation between instruments. It also had better attack transients on the drums (especially the cymbals).

On Root Doctor's first CD, we decided the opposite; we tracked to tape because for that music, it sounded best.

I use Cubase as a glorified tape machine for most of my work but I'm always thankful for the ease of use when it comes to editing parts. I own a 16 track 2" Scully tape machine which is almost fully working (still need to rebuild the bias circuit) and I'd love to use it, but in the meantime I'm very satisfied with imposing my own limits of the limitless potential of digital in order to force myself to come up with creative solutions. Limits inspire creativity in many cases and that's the real trick with digital.

For organissimo's next CD, which we're almost done tracking here at my home studio, we have more isolation (the Leslie speaker and guitar amp are in separate rooms) but even so we're still doing full takes and not relying on overdubs or editing to fix our own musicianship issues. If it ain't right, track it again. I wanted to separate the instruments this time to get a cleaner, more defined sound. You can hear the results here:

http://organissimo.o...y%20Goodbye.mp3

[wookiee]

I use Cubase as a glorified tape machine for most of my work but I'm always thankful for the ease of use when it comes to editing parts. I own a 16 track 2" Scully tape machine which is almost fully working (still need to rebuild the bias circuit) and I'd love to use it, but in the meantime I'm very satisfied with imposing my own limits of the limitless potential of digital in order to force myself to come up with creative solutions. Limits inspire creativity in many cases and that's the real trick with digital.

I as well use Cubase for all my demo's, before actually tracking. It's way easier, of course. I've also done plenty of rock albums at studios using Protools and if the engineer knows what they are doing, it can sound really, really incredible.

For the Park St. Trio album, I really wanted an older, more vintage sound. Since I knew somebody that liked using his tape machine, it seemed like an easy way to do it. It's also faster in the editing/mixing area, because you have less tracks to deal with and none of the musicians can say anything about "fixing" notes or changing tones, adding effects... It's just, what we recorded and that's it. We did, of course, use high quality mic's, and very specific mic placement as well as isolation for the bass guitar. The vibes, drums and guitar we all in the same room. Next time I think I would isolate the vibes a bit more.

Here's a video, you can see myself on drums and the guitar player, the vibes are on the right and the bass is actually behind the camera in the iso booth.

Doctor's Doctrine

The new Organissimo track sounded sweet!!! I love that mellow groove.